Speaker Topics

Early Intervention

Health Literacy

Social-Emotional Screening for Parents and Children with Special Health Care Needs

Infant Mental Health

Interests & Expertise

As an experienced occupational therapist, Dr. Barnekow has served families of children enrolled in services through Milwaukee County’s Birth to 3 Program. Dr. Barnekow’s clinical experience provided her with an understanding of the importance of family empowerment and navigation through systems of care. For that reason her research has focused on health promotion and disease prevention strategies for parents and children who have special health care needs. A primary concentration of Dr. Barnekow’s research is the promotion of optimal developmental outcomes through early identification of social emotional disorders in mothers and young children. Collectively, the findings of her research indicate that mothers of children with special health care needs who reside in urban areas are more likely to screen positive for depression and perinatal posttraumatic stress disorder. Even though the Institute of Medicine and the CDC recommend screening in community settings to detect maternal and child social emotional disorders, early intervention providers are currently not incorporating this evidence into practice. Consequently, screening of mothers and children remains relatively low in early intervention settings.

Another focus of Dr. Barnekow’s research program is health literacy. As such, she is part of an interdisciplinary team that has investigated the readability of early intervention program literature and the health literacy skills of parents who have children enrolled in early intervention programs. While parents of children enrolled in Birth to 3 possess adequate functional health literacy; many parents/caregivers of children with special health care needs continue to have difficulty navigating multiple systems of care. This may be partially due to poor written and oral communication skills of their providers, which negatively affects the parents’ interactive health literacy abilities. She aims to collaborate with scholars who have a shared interest in investigating the relation between health literacy concepts, early identification of social emotional disorders and promotion of optimal outcomes for children with special health care needs.

Pizur-Barnekow, K., Kamp, K., Cashin, S. (2012). An investigation of maternal play styles used during the co-occupation of maternal-infant play. Journal of Occupational Science. Available online. doi:10.1080/14427591.2012.724379

Pizur-Barnekow, K., Darragh, A., & Johnston, M. (2011). “I cried because I didn’t know if I could take care of him”. Toward a taxonomy of interactive and critical health literacy as portrayed by caregivers of children with special health care needs. Journal of Health Communication, 16, 205-211.

Rizk, S., Barnekow, K., & Darragh, A. (2011). Leisure and Social Participation and Health-Related Quality of Life in Caregivers of Children With Autism. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health. DOI: 10.3928/15394492-20110415-01

Rizk, S., Pizur-Barnekow, K., & Darragh, A. (2011). The relationship between leisure and social participation and perceived health status in caregivers of children with autism. OTJR: Occupation, Participation and Health. DOI: 10.3928/15394492-20110415-01

Pizur-Barnekow, K., Patrick, T., Rhyner, P., Cashin, S., & Reentmester, A. (2010). An investigation of the readability of early intervention program literature. Topics in Early Childhood Special Education, DOI: 10.1177/0271121410387676

Pizur-Barnekow, K. (2010). Maternal health following the birth of an infant at high risk: Setting the context for evaluation of co-occupational performance. American Journal of Occupational Therapy,64, 642-649.